Having taught junior high and high school and served as a school principal, Jim Eichenberger has a passion for education. He holds a master”s degree in educational administration from the University of Illinois at Springfield and an undergraduate degree in Christian education from Lincoln (Illinois) Christian College. As a Christian educator, Jim has been a contributor to Standard Publishing since the 1970s and has been employed by Standard full-time since 1995. Thirteen years ago Jim began developing the concept of a chronological treatment of the Bible that would have broad appeal to Christians of all maturity levels. That concept has come to fruition in Standard Publishing”s newly released, Discovering God”s Story: Fully Illustrated Bible Handbook in Chronological Order, available at Christian bookstores and at www.standardpub.com/Products/021532410/discovering-gods-story.aspx.
How did Discovering God”s Story come about?
This book started to develop about 13 years ago. One of our salesmen at the time was noticing he was selling Bible story children”s books to adults who were new Christians. These adults wanted to get a grasp of the Bible, and we had a book called The Young Reader”s Bible. People were buying it to get an overview of Scripture because they came from no biblical background. This salesman asked, “What would a Young Reader”s Bible for adults look like?” And the wheels started turning.
Would you call Discovering God”s Story a storybook? A commentary? A Bible handbook?
That”s basically it. It”s a unique combination. The subtitle is a Fully Illustrated Bible Handbook in Chronological Order. Once I got the idea, I started putting together this proposal for a chronological treatment of the entire story of Scripture. So really, it”s part Bible handbook, it”s part one-volume commentary, and it”s part Bible storybook for adults.
Are new believers the intended audience?
I love to teach the Bible and I have found that no matter who I was talking to””a new believer, a seasoned believer, or a skeptic””when I started talking about the entire Bible story from beginning to end it always brought a lot of respect for what the Bible is. With this book, a new believer can sit down in two hours and get a good understanding of what the Bible is. But for those of us who have a much broader background, it”s also great for us to say, “Oh yeah, that”s why Micah and Isaiah sound so much alike. They prophesied at about the same time.” So I believe it has a broad audience.
What is the format of the book?
The book deals with 100 key events in Scripture arranged in chronological order, laid out in two-page spreads, and illustrated with some of Standard Publishing”s classic Bible art. There are a number of features that appear on every two-page spread in the book. There is a running time line at the bottom of each spread that shows how each event relates to other biblical events and also how each one relates to secular events. This is really appealing to seasoned believers who can see that when David was on the throne Homer was writing The Iliad and The Odyssey. Or, when Socrates was teaching, Ezra was leading the Jews back from exile. So it gives seasoned believers the understanding of how God was acting simultaneously through world history.
What differentiates this book from other Bible chronologies?
There are a number of chronological Bibles that help you read through the Scriptures over the course of the year in a chronological fashion. This is really a handbook, a help””it”s meant to be a reference tool. There have been charts and time lines in Standard”s library for many years, but that”s just a part of what”s here. This is a fully illustrated handbook with a time line, a Bible reading plan, a one-volume commentary. It”s a lot of things in one.
Isn”t it conventional wisdom that the Bible is just a collection of stories?
That”s the kind of mythology that”s out there about Scripture. So many folks go to a university and will be taught that the Bible is just a random collection of folklore, of legend, of stories that have pretty much been pasted together. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Bible”s take on itself says the plan of God was begun before the creation of the world. This is a phrase Peter, Paul, and John use, talking about Jesus being in the plan from the beginning of time.
From creation, God had a cogent plan. We have one continual story of God creating, then finding a way to redeem the prize of his creation””human beings. All of Scripture is consistent and works toward that end. All the way from creation to the completion, that is yet to happen, with Christ coming again.
How does the Bible connect the story of God”s plan to what has happened in the developing history of humankind?
I believe that when people understand what the Bible says about itself, they will see it as being rooted in history, and not see it as a fairy tale or legend. Scripture frequently talks about secular rulers and geographic places. The Bible is not “Once upon a time in a land far, far away. . . .” When people realize this, it causes some thinking, which helps people reevaluate what the Bible is. And I hope it also spurs them to deeper study.
Does the Bible have appeal to readers beyond the religious implications? Can it be viewed as a simple piece of literature?
I”m certainly hoping that this book will find an audience beyond the church. For so many people the Bible is the best book they”ve never read. We have grown up in Western civilization and, without argument, the Bible is a central document of Western civilization. It”s really unthinkable that a truly educated person would not be familiar with a key document of their civilization and yet, so many are. Bible illiteracy is a problem within and outside the church.
How would people use this book as opposed to just flipping open a Bible?
One of my colleagues here said that one of the things he likes about the book is that it has a lot of entry points. What he means is you can pretty much flip open any page and find something of interest, but it”s really designed to be read from beginning to end to give that full story of Scripture. It”s an introductory book””it is not an apologetic book, it”s not a salvation tract””it simply attempts to let the Bible say what the Bible says. It”s certainly something to be flipped through, but it”s meant to be read to get the entire story, the entire plan of God”s salvation.
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Brad Dupray is senior vice president, ministry development, with Church Development Fund, Irvine, California.
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